Friday Four

1. Modern "art" does occasionally have its moments. Greg Ross of the Futility Closet writes:

In 2009 experimental poet Robert Fitterman erased most of The Sun Also Rises, retaining only phrases that begin with the word I. The result can sound strangely like the diary entry of a random Saturday afternoon[.]

See his post for a passage.

2. The below comes from a samplng of complaints medieval monks left in the margins of the books they transcribed:

As the harbor is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to the scribe.

I have to admit a feeling of kinship for a monk complaining of back pain: Much of the week, I have had to hold the baby, whom I often call "No-Doz", while pecking things out one-handed and looking at the computer at a very awkward angle. 

3. Is your phone set to vibrate? Then you might find this explanation of phantom vibrations interesting. One occasional benefit of such false positives for me has been that, upon reaching to check my phone, I have discovered that I have forgotten to take it with me.

4.  Good news/bad news for a salesman who told a designer that, "I just need cards by Wednesday so I look like I know what I'm doing." The good? I bet nobody threw his business cards away. The bad? If he ever gets a clue, he might want them to.

It was a rush job, and I would have preferred better images, but he gave his approval and we met the deadline in time for him to attend a bunch of conferences and hand out most of his cards.

Curious, I took to finding out what the formulas were for. Turns out the client handed out cards with the formulas for cocaine and a variety of other hard drugs to a bunch of chemists.

He could have just passed out cards that read, "Caveat emptor," but that wouldn't have been as funny.

-- CAV